October 6, 2023 - 10:45am
Rishi Sunak has set a trap for Sir Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister’s declaration this week that “we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be” highlights what has been happening in the Labour Party. It contains significant numbers of people, including Labour MPs, who turn on anyone daring enough to say human beings can’t change sex.
As Labour heads for its annual conference in Liverpool, Starmer knows how the pronoun people would react if he were sufficiently brave to repeat the Prime Minister’s perfectly reasonable observation. If he remains silent, however, it will be a reminder of his cowardly failure to condemn those in the party who have bullied and harassed women with gender-critical views.
LGBT+ Labour, Labour Students and Young Labour have all called for the whip to be withdrawn from the Labour MP Rosie Duffield. Female parliamentarians who stand up for women’s rights have received rape and death threats, yet Starmer has not spoken to Duffield for two years. And he has ignored letters and emails from party members who have tried to persuade him to condemn the silencing of gender-critical views.
The hysterical response to Sunak’s observation that “a woman is a woman” shows that many people on the Left can’t hear the word “woman” without yelling “transphobia”. It is a warning to Starmer of what would happen if he were to go further than his most recent pronouncement on the subject of sex and gender. He has shifted away from his bizarre claim that one in a thousand women has a penis, to an acceptance that a woman is an “adult female”.
Yet only last month the Labour MP for Jarrow, Kate Osborne, took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce that “some women have a penis”. Labour has a group of MPs who are fully on board with the trans agenda, and their number is growing as local parties select candidates with similar views. The Labour Women’s Declaration, a group that stands up for women’s sex-based rights, has once again been refused a stall at Conference.
No doubt the Prime Minister’s statement was made in the knowledge that it would be popular with much of the country, where people agree with him on this if little else. But it also turns up the heat on Starmer, whose reluctance to call out what some women regard as a climate of fear within the party suggests that Labour is too locked into gender ideology to be trusted.
The leadership has backed off from supporting self-ID, but is still proposing to make it easier for people to change their legal sex. No doubt Starmer hoped he had done enough to take the heat out of the issue as far as Labour is concerned, but the Tories’ determination to turn back the tide on gender ideology in public bodies such as the police and the NHS makes that unlikely. The announcement that transwomen may be banned from female hospital wards caused another splenetic reaction this week.
Starmer is one of the politicians who have allowed transactivists to develop an outsized sense of entitlement. But public opinion has had enough of an entire society being turned on its head to placate a handful of trans-identified males. And Starmer’s toleration of appalling behaviour is going to come back and bite him.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She has been Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board since 2013. Her book Homegrown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists was published in 2019.
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SubscribeSurely, a good tactic at the ballot box is to back candidates that respect reality (gender critical) and not votes for candidates that deny reality and rights for women… ? The organisation Sex Matters ran a ‘Respect my sex, if you want my X’ campaign in the past – we need that to happen again.
It’s happening. Kellie-Jay Keen has started a women’s party and will be standing against Keir Starmer in the General Election.
This is why I can’t bring myself to vote labour at this time, regardless of the state of the Tories. Because you know all of this idiocy is simmering in wait. If you don’t inhabit reality on something as simple as what a woman is then you can’t be trusted on anything else.
Exactly why in NZ I’m voting for the new Women’s Rights Party in our General Election next week.
Our present Labour PM and all the current parliamentarians across the 5 Parties there, believe that a woman is anyone who identifies as one. As you say, if they lie about that, what else will they lie about.
I am not very optimistic about the UK. I think that trans/NetZero suicide cult has strong support there. UK police force are acting like a bunch of malicious clowns arresting journalists and tolerating grooming gangs.
‘trans/NetZero suicide cult’
That’s a curious shoehorn. You may disagree with the specifics of push for net zero, but it’s hard to deny the overwhelming body of science that supports it. Gender identity, on the other hand, is pure faith, and thus essentially science-free. And, as with any other belief system, those who believe gender identity ideology should be free to practise it, just as those who don’t should be free to dismiss it.
How does that work in schools, or in relation to women’s spaces and sports etc? I don’t think this is a battle that can be avoiding by adopting a live-and-let-live approach.
That’s a very fair question. I don’t think I made my point very well.
As I say, gender identity is pure faith, and as such no different from any other belief system – Christianity, Scientology, reincarnation, astrology etc. A liberal democracy would doubtless support the freedom of its citizens to subscribe to such belief systems, so long as they complied with the law in so doing. However, these ideologies should have no place in dictating the laws in the first place. We have a word for countries that allow belief systems to determine their laws, and the word is theocracy.
Consequently, gender identity ideology should have no sway over how schools operate, nor over who should have access to women’s spaces and sports. Nor should I be legally obliged to use anyone’s chosen pronouns any more than I am legally obliged to accept that you have a soul, or that Xenu (the leader of the Galactic Federation) transported large numbers of people to Earth 75m years ago, or that you were Cleopatra’s handmaiden in another life.
As Dave Chappelle puts it: “I support anyone’s right to be who they want to be. My question is: to what extent do I have to participate in your self-image?”
All countries allow belief systems to determine their laws. The difference is that democracies base those laws on the beliefs held by a majority of the population. They do not allow small minorities and vested interests to dictate the laws, or to use the money paid by taxpayers to abuse and brainwash children and exclude parents from the educational process.
That’s called totalitarianism – and it’s where we’re going.
Overwhelming body of (grant-seeking) scientists who support it. The actual science is much more equivocal.
‘Grant-seeking’? Is that your best shot? Name me a scientist who isn’t ‘grant-seeking’ who also isn’t a billionaire.
The scientific evidence is both expansive and extraordinarily consistent. I am impressed that you manage to find it ‘equivocal’, but in the same way that I am impressed by those who seriously pitch that we live on a flat earth.
The Tories have set half a dozen traps, not only this “what is a woman?” question but also:
“Britain is the best place to be black” versus Labour’s pronouncements on “institutional racism” and new race laws;
Sunak’s go-slow on net zero measure versus Labour’s Just Stop Oil donors and activists;
Rwanda versus Labour’s policy of voluntarily taking 100k+ illegals from the EU
Cancelling HS2 north and spending the money on roads and local rail.
There are two questions. Do the Tories have the skill, luck and unity to maintain the traps? Will Starmer decide it is politic to just fall in line with these Tory policies and if he does, will the electorate believe him?
I think these questions, assuming inflation continues to fall and we don’t go into recession, will decide the next election.
Perhaps – but only if Just Stop Oil, Stonewall, Hope Not Hate etc carry on as they have this year. I suspect they’ll realise they’re damaging Labour’s chances and dial it down until after the election. If Tory strategists have any sense they’ll ensure that there is ceaseless provocation – fracking, defunding NGOs and the like.
I think you are right Hugh and there is so many bruises the Tories can punch if they are ruthless enough. Like you say, there is fracking and NGO funding. Also guidance for schools on trans issues and on political activism in the classroom like BLM etc. Plenty of things that can be done on crime – I think I heard someone, Braverman or Sunak, I think – say they were going to look at the vagrancy laws to stop rough sleeping getting out of hand. And then there is legal immigration. Loads to aim at if they have the stomach for the fight.
eg: legislating for parents’ rights. In the US this battle is leading to millions of defections from the Democrats.
Hope Not Hate might do as you suggest, but I don’t think Stonewall or Just Stop Oil will. They are prime examples of the kind of political pressure group that believes both its cause and its methods trump all other considerations.
I think you’re right in your analysis. I hope you are right about the extremists dialling it down so that Labour can tackle the issues that they appear to be focussing on. I think Starmer may have a hard time shutting down the “student politics for adults” brigade in his own party. And he will need to become more skilled in not being drawn on culture war issues.
You are living in a fantasy land. The Tories have blundered their way into a disastrous position and what you consider to be traps are actually banana skins that they have already slipped on.
If you think the Rwanda or HS2 disasters are “traps” for Labour then I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you. Enjoy having Suella Braverman lead you into a decade of oblivion.
Whenever I read your comments, a bit of me wonders whether you’re actually a Tory plant, bent on displaying the progressive left as foolish, hysterical and vindictive (whether they need any assistance in that is a discussion best left for another day). But you might make your points more powerfully without the constant ‘four legs good two legs bad’ leitmotif drowning out what might otherwise be some interesting perspectives.
Sadly I think all the progress tackling the harm done by gender ideology will be undone, and the trans extremists will rule the roost. Lab is captured by them. Look at London’s City Hall. We should regard this as a long fight to safeguard children, vulnerable adults, and women’s rights, and hope there are enough rationalists and people who value evidence based policy in the PLP to prevent too much harm. I’m not optimistic. They are not a courageous or ethical bunch, but keener to play to the LBTQI2S+ lobby than do the right thing.
The question we should be asking is: why are so many of our technocratic class so vehemently and actively signed up to participate in and push large scale social delusions? And what is the implication for the extent of trust we should place in people who are willing (in some cases very aggressively) to do this? What I mean is, I can disagree with someone who likes Coronation Street vs someone who likes EastEnders. I personally don’t watch either, but I don’t have a problem with their preferences if they were to become a cabinet minister. On the other hand, I would probably have a big problem with someone who might casually happen to mention, while walking into the voting lobbies at Westminster, that they were at a meeting of the lizard people yesterday evening, and it was decided to grant humanity immortality as long as everyone agreed to wear plastic orange clothing forever after, otherwise humanity would be terminated in 2039. It seems to me people like Kate Osborne and many in the Labour party (and not an insignificant number in the Tory party) are firmly in the latter camp. And the likes of Starmer are egging them along. Do I seriously want these people in positions of power?
Nobody cares who you want in positions of power.
Your insane bigotry has no place in a civilized society.
?
What part don’t you understand, sport? The big words confusing you?
Someone gets their kicks out of being brash.
Champagne Socialist is a troll.
‘Poo Fash is a tuat.
What part don’t you understand, sport? The big words confusing you?
Nobody cares who you want in positions of power.
Your insane bigotry has no place in a civilized society.
Spot on Joan, great post, thank you! There is only one party leader we can trust with our sex, and that’s the uncomfortable truth.
My strong suspicion is that this won’t play out as a significant factor in the next election, therefore Starmer won’t travel any further back to reality than he has already.
Although I’m in no doubt that most voters agree a woman is an adult human female, the issue doesn’t loom large enough in the day-to-day lives of the politically non-committed, compared with jobs, food prices, crime, Tory mismanagement etc for it to be decisive.
The only leverage gender critical women could have over Starmer now is if sufficient numbers of women boycotted Labour. But that seems unlikely at this point when so much focus is on the task of voting the Conservatives out and he has probably done enough with his previous statement to draw the sting of the issue for now.
The uncomfortable fact for both sides in this debate is that most women find men dressing up as women funny rather than threatening. Their fear, when walking home at night, is not that they will be pursued by a man in high heels and a hobble skirt!
Women also fear attack in prisons, toilets and hospital wards from trans-identified males, or when trying to speak at or attend gender-critical events.
Where on earth did this idea come from that the Labour Party is the feminist party and it’s been hijacked by trans. As a mainstream left wing party, Labour is currently looking at pretty much an open door. It only has to keep its head and walk through.
It does not need to be hampered by a bun fight between two opposing groups, both claiming to be feminists, who have never really grown out of student politics.
The fact you, are a Labour supporter is both tragic and terrifying. We birthed you. You prove only that Labour is dead and #sexmatters more than ever.
Is it me personally, or the Labour Party you think you “birthed”? What a bizarre thing to say. I think I’d rather have been birthed by Medea.
I really don’t think that Keir Starmer can learn anything from a lame duck prime minister who is throwing out desperate far right lunacy in an attempt to placate the swivel eyed loons who elect Tory leaders these days.
It won’t work and he’s only making the inevitable defeat next year more likely to be a landslide generational humiliation as all right thinking people turn away in disgust from what is left of the Tories.
Trans has been around for years, and as long as I can remember. Latter half of my working life been in hospitals. Accommodating a Trans onto a Hospital ward not exactly a daily occurrence but managed quite sensibly for decades respecting both the patient and other patients – usually via use of side-room. Not noticed any change in recent years to that.
Thus why all the histrionics now? It’s a million miles away from the main worries we have providing good care to folks.
Extremes on both sides have whipped this up, feeding off each other and needing each other – and that’s the truth of it.
Anyone trying to find the position that both respectful and kind to everyone shouted down. Strange times.
Extremes on both sides? Absolutely not, there is no evidence to support that claim, but in fact plenty of evidence to refute it.
Also, just because nurses have always shuffled AGPs around wards, doesn’t mean they always should or will. Single sex spaces keep women and children safe, we should all be in agreement on that and suspicious of those who are not.
Plenty of evidence but none that you can provide? Pretty standard bigot response.
https://youtu.be/FsKn5XeJkWY?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/96er3pm62IU?feature=shared
Trans people defending themselves against bigots. You think they should accept being attacked and marginalized by the likes of you?
The likes of me, provide evidence, debate and facts, to the likes of you. The likes of you, respond with insults, intimidation and aggression. Standard.
You are rude, and disinterested in the evidence provided; a typical trans rights activist – you were probably there, bullying women trying to speak. I’ll quit wasting my time, our interests are not the same.
“Healthy debate occurs when people can agree that they have differences of opinions, not differences in facts.” – Robert J. Braathe
Let us know when you start providing facts, dearie. Youtube videos are not facts.
You asked for evidence, dummy.
Ratio proves you loose despite your attempts to bully.
There’s plenty of stuff on YouTube of crazy feminists behaving in similar ways towards men and/or their opponents. And plenty of examples of feminist students trying to shut down speakers they disagreed with pre the whole trans debate. I struggle to believe the issue is one sided.
I support people like K Strong because: 1. She is capable of balanced, rational argument; 2. Her support for free speech seems genuine. So far as I am aware she has no history of trying to shut down speech she didn’t like.
But I won’t be joining people on the barricades that I know to be bigots, just because I agree with some of what they say now.
You are so far off the mark, it’s suspicious.
Resorting to insults, is nothing but typical.
What about women’s rights upsets you so? Why would we not agree on child protection, and women’s safety? Don’t bother David, I think I know.
Really? Then say so. I’d hate you to feel you have to spare my feelings.
Honestly, you present as a seething misogynist, which makes everything possible, in my experience. Whether you have a dog in the trans fight is irrelevant, because for you it seems, like just another opportunity to stick it to the women.
Seems you suffer womens existence with either hate or envy – impossible to tell the difference these days!
Good to hear from someone actually dealing with the reality of this. I have no experience to speak off with trans activists – but I know this brand of feminist of old. I’m afraid hatred is their stock in trade. Only once have I been involved in a discussion between trans activists and feminists, and that only on line. On that occasion the trans side was both more reasonable and more polite. Whether that was representative I have no idea. It worries me sometimes that we are being fed a line by ageing feminists.
Wow — aging feminists. How ageist is that!
I have plenty of experience dealing with anti women activist’s aka trans activists. Aggressive, bullying, death threats, shouty shout shout, etc etc. Just ask the fabulous JKRowling, Helen Joyce, Maya Forseter, Graham Lineham, Kelly-Jay Keen, Kathleen Stock, Megan Murphy, and thousands of others who have been subjected to the Tran$ cultural revolution tactics.
So lucky old you for not being subject to it. Can you please share who those people were so they can be asked to a public debate on this topic?
waiting….
It does seem to be a largely generational thing between feminists. Older feminists tend to be anti trans, younger feminists tend to be pro.
I question whether older feminists aren’t 1. Being deliberately provocative 2. Using this issue to give themselves a relevance they no longer have
Some good signs in the news this morning that Labour will focus on health and housing. Issues of relevance to ordinary people.
“Thus why all the histrionics now? ”
Its a wedge issue for the far right. Trying to stoke fear is all they have, and the evidence of the comments here is that it is working.
I guarantee you that the most hysterical comments are from those who have never met a trans person and probably never will.
Interesting question who’s using who here. Whether it’s a bunch of old feminists recruiting equally old tories as attack dogs for their cause. Or younger, smarter tories duping old feminists into opening a wound which they think can divide, or discredit, the left.
Perhaps a bit of both. I can certainly see why the tories would have an interest in giving the “terfs” a platform.
It’s a reasonable question. In the past, as you rightly say, there was a bit more kindly accommodation of people’s’ proclivities providing it didn’t cause any harm. I certainly remember the whole ‘where in earth can put this unorthodox patient’ discussion on many occasions.
What’s changed? Social media and the currency of ersatz victimhood. The moment you link activism with reward you create shouty activists. The pushback follows, normally when the activists’ demands become ridiculous and disproportionate.